


Darkness Is Cheap

by floweringbloom



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: 5+1 Things, Gen, Mid-Canon, Noodle Incident, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-26 17:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweringbloom/pseuds/floweringbloom
Summary: Or: Five times ANBU Red Team cause a natural disaster, and one time they don't.





	Darkness Is Cheap

1.

It starts with the earthquake, of course. _EarthFake._ Bat is still a little proud of her pun. It's a pity she won't have a chance to reuse it with a more appreciative audience.

2.

"Divert a shipping convoy?" Towa asks. He tilts his mask at Bat at the same time Hawk does, and Bat looks to Komachi and receives no quarter. "Can we do that?"

He sounds resigned. Bat looks at Hawk, whose mask stares back at her implacably. "Bat?" 

"Well," Bat says, and, under the cover of the cave they've taken shelter in, traces the path of the convoy on their map. They were initially assigned to stop it at the port on the Cloud border with as little suspicion as possible, but their intelligence had been faulty; it had left the evening before they arrived. "Considering the wind speed… do we know what the weather is like in Rock?"

Hawk casts a considering look at the clouded horizon. "I don't think it's any better than it is here."

"If we're efficient," Bat says, "we can probably make a waterspout - that's a tornado over water. Maybe even a mesocyclone. But we'd have to get ahead of them."

Hawk says, "Wind jutsu?"

"And some heat," Bat says, "you know how tornadoes form, right? Warm moisture at the surface, colder dry air above. If you add some wind-shear and an updraft and…"

"How much wind jutsu?" Komachi asks, and Bat tips her mask toward her.

"Well, they can be finicky," she admits. "But worst case, we crash it on the Rock side, right?"

"Well," Hawk says after a moment, "no objections? It's the best idea we've got."

The look he gives Bat, obvious even hidden by his mask, says, _I hope you know what you're doing_. Bat, who spent four months beating her head against the brick wall of an air barrier before she gave it up as a bad idea, knows what she's doing. Mostly. Probably. She knows the basics, at least.

Less than two days later, she looks on her creation and finds it acceptable. _Fauxnado_ doesn't have quite the right ring to it, though. She'll think of something.

3.

"Don't tell me," Hawk says dryly, "you have just the natural disaster in mind."

"I mean," Bat says, "it is a floodplain. It's right there in the name."

Towa looks down at the rather unfortunate floodplain and the underground base they're supposed to discreetly take out of commission lurking beneath it. "Wouldn't they be prepared for a flood?"

"Maybe," Bat allows. "But that just means we need to try harder."

"More water?" Komachi asks, sounding amused despite herself, and Bat tips her mask to convey her appreciation.

"And where is this water coming from?"

Bat gestures behind Hawk. He slowly turns around, looks at the mountain range, then looks back at her. "Really," he says.

"Yes?" Bat tries. "We might not have to cause an avalanche if there's enough meltwater. Or we could use enough fire jutsu to make our own - flash flooding can be caused just as easily by ice dams melting to a certain point with enough water behind it, so if we freeze a section and create it ourselves…"

"Bat has a point, taicho," Komachi says helpfully, and Hawk heaves a sigh.

"We'll try it," he says. "No promises."

He doesn't need to give promises. Bat sketches out a quick ice-dam seal based on Haku's interesting wind-water hyouton and calls it _Dam It_ , at least in her head.

4\. 

"Hear me out," Bat starts: "Firestorm."

They're in the largely unpopulated region of Cloud, where the climate is moderate enough to allow trees and scrub. It's not safe for them to be there, miles deep in enemy territory, but they're supposed to cause unattributed trouble far away from the skirmishes at the border.

Red Team is getting very good at unattributed trouble.

"Cause?" Hawk prompts.

"Lightning strike," suggests Towa. 

"Are the conditions favourable?" Komachi asks. "It's dry here, but firestorm dry?"

"It might take a few days," Bat allows, "but I have some ideas. Taicho, how are your water tricks?"

It's been a long time since they learned how to draw water out of the air, and not much after that, out of the ground. Hawk surveys the area thoughtfully, catching on. "Not bad," he says. "How far are you thinking?"

"We need enough space to get it started," Bat says, "and to feed it. Add some fire and wind…"

"It'll have to be strong," Hawk says.

"Of course, taicho," Bat says. "I learnt a few things from the tornado."

"What water tricks are you talking about?" Towa asks, conceding to his fate.

Bat has a better idea than water tricks, of course. She's taking inspiration when she sets up a complex seal to collect all the water in the air and the ground. Water isn't alive enough for sentience, thankfully, and by the time they light a spark the scrub is kindling-dry.

The winds help, maybe a bit too much. Despite their chakra-thermoregulation, they can't stick around long.

"Maybe less overkill," Hawk says, once they've escaped the danger of their own making. He looks at Bat when he says it.

"There's no kill like overkill," Bat says. "…though you might have a point."

 _Water Collector_? No. Maybe _Dryer._ It still needs work.

5.

"Technically," Bat says, "a tsunami is usually due to an oceanic earthquake, so it's not a _new_ disaster."

"Technically," repeats Komachi. "I always knew you were a one-trick saboteur."

"We'll be known as the earthquake team," Towa agrees. "That's it. Only earthquakes."

"See how well you quake without me," Bat says. "Hawk-taicho?"

"I don't know," Hawk says, amusement audible, "are you sure you want to re-use an old idea?"

"It's not exactly the same!" Bat protests. "It's underwater, for one. Or do you want me to fake a volcano instead?"

"Aren't some earthquakes just from volcano movement?" Hawk says innocently. Bat knows he only knows this because she mentioned it a month ago, trying to increase his enthusiasm for earthquake facts. Now she knows better.

"Only earthquakes," Towa repeats, solemnly, and Bat rolls her eyes.

"A tsunami it is," she says. " _Pseudo-nami_."

" _Fabri-quake_ ," Komachi suggests. 

"No," says Hawk flatly. "No more puns. Bat, you know what to do. Towa, Komachi - how are your Earth jutsu?"

Bat's seal needs to work from further out, which is an interesting challenge. She's done some linked seals before, though, and this is just a larger, more complicated version of those.

The hardest part is sealing underwater, but she knows it can be done, and for the rest she has her shadow. They watch the tsunami destroy the abandoned port from a safe place along the shore.

+1.

For a Daimyo in need of a change of heart and a rebellious princess on the verge of starting a coup, Bat is all out of natural disasters. This is a people problem and they all know it; it's not going to be as simple as starting an earthquake in the right place to solve it.

Bat and Hawk infiltrate the palace while Towa and Komachi gather information on the civilians and the nearby ninja village's loyalties. "We could assassinate him and pin it on Cloud," Towa suggests without much enthusiasm.

"Too obvious," Hawk says. "It can't be ninja."

"What's too big to be ninja?" Komachi asks, a common refrain for Red Team, and Hawk shakes his head.

"'Too big' isn't going to help this time," he says. "The Daimyo is too pro-Cloud. He wouldn't give up his position to his daughter over his ancestor's graves."

"We could encourage her?" Komachi offers. "If she takes over…"

They'll be inciting civil war, they don't say. It might be the best option they have - for Konoha, at least.

But something's bothering Bat. "Taicho," she says, frowning, "what did you say?"

Hawk pauses. "The Daimyo is too pro-Cloud," he says. "He won't give it up over his… ancestor's…"

Hawk looks at Bat. Bat tips her head.

"He's superstitious," Hawk says, slowly. "He prays at his family shrine every day. But you can't mean…"

Bat says, "We could. It's been done before."

"It's stupid," Hawk says, but he sounds thoughtful. "Really stupid. Maybe even… too stupid to be ninja."

"That's reassuring," Komachi says. "And what is it?"

Bat clears her throat. "We convince the Daimyo to retire by pretending to be his ancestor's ghosts."

Both Towa and Komachi are staring at her now. "Ghosts," Towa says. "It won't work. No-one believes in ghosts."

Bat looks at Hawk, and he shifts uncomfortably under her gaze. Komachi glances between them.

"Do you… believe in ghosts?"

"I've seen ghosts," Hawk says, finally. "Which isn't the point. What matters is if the Daimyo believes in ghosts."

"Which he probably does," Bat finishes. An idea strikes her, and she thinks over it for the briefest of moments: but when will she ever get this chance again? "About that, I had an idea…"

The reference is lost on them, but Bat struggles not to giggle through their dramatic attempts at ghosts past, present and future. "Don't think you're getting out of this," Hawk threatens, as Bat corrects Towa's over-dramatic moaning impression of being stabbed to death. "You're going to be laying the ghostly foundations."

"Bah, humbug," Bat says, but she's already dissecting the puzzle of pretend-ghost seals. "I'll scare something up."


End file.
